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Salad

Lettuce or Slaw Dressing

A creamy dressing made with milk, vinegar, sugar, salt, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, butter, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Lettuce or Slaw Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk, vinegar, sugar, salt, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and butter.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens to the consistency of cream.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolks until well combined.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing and add richness as they set gently with the warm mixture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens with the heat and yolks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavour.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture gently while stirring constantly. Milk and egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the heat is too high or stirring stops. Constant stirring over medium heat lets the mixture thicken evenly into a smooth, creamy dressing.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, vinegar, sugar, mustard, sauce, butter, egg):

  1. Sesamefits about as well
  2. Almondfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, vinegar, sugar, mustard, sauce, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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